Benefits of Organic Agriculture under the Perspective of the Bioeconomy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The opportunities for the global growth of the bioeconomy (BE) are generated by the need to expand the food supply for an increasing world population without compromising the environment even further. Organic agriculture (OA) claims to be more environmentally friendly than conventional agriculture and capable of addressing sustainable development objectives by using green technologies, resulting in economic, social, and ecological benefits. The aim of this paper is to investigate the relation between OA and BE through a systematic literature review. We addressed the benefits of OA under perspective of the main aspects of BE. As demonstrated by previous papers assessed on this review, OA can be a means to facilitate strategies for the use of renewable resources to mitigate the emergencies arising from global warming, as claimed by the BE concept. This article introduces a necessary discussion due the lack of previous studies reporting the capacity of OA to connect with the BE. As a final contribution, we present a conceptual framework characterizing potential benefits of OA under the perspective of BE, for organic farmers and researchers to advance in sustainability and green innovation.